


Splinters

by scribefindegil



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, He can't get hugs when he's like this!!!, Identity Issues, Introspection, Magnus Has Like 12 Existential Crises, Save my boy!, ep 57 spoilers like woah, it's terrible!, seriously massive massive spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9907775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribefindegil/pseuds/scribefindegil
Summary: Set at the campsite mentioned at the end of Episode 57.Magnus reflects on his current situation. It's . . . not great.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Massive massive spoilers for Episode 57

A year ago, Magnus was sitting in nearly this exact spot, using his secondhand battleaxe to carve stumps into chairs. It was a good icebreaker for new traveling companions, he’d found. These two weren’t exactly what he’d called communicative, but he had always been better at woodcarving than small talk anyway.

Now, only one of the chairs is occupied. Merle sits, and the red-robed figure hovers near another, and Magnus . . .

“What now, homie?”

“Did you get all the excess glue off?”

“Yeah, we’re golden.”

“Okay. Then clamp. Just . . . right over the joint . . .”

Magnus is trying to teach a wizard who’s probably never used a bench scraper in his life how to do wood repair. Which he can’t do himself because the split he’s trying to fix is in his own damn shoulder. Because he’s made of wood now! Cool! Not exactly where he thought his life was gonna end up.

Taako tightens the clamp and leans back to survey his handiwork.

“Oh, looks like there’s a little more glue after all. Just hold it a tick and . . . therrrre . . . we . . . go! Good as new!”

It’s not. Magnus has a great deal of faith in the power of wood glue, but the edge of this split is so jagged there’s only so much he can do. It needs a fill, and to have the dents around it dealt with, and _careful_ sanding, not the slapdash job that Taako had done.

But he has a right arm again, so that’s something. He moves the fingers gingerly, then the elbow, and then tries rotating the shoulder joint. He suspects that Taako didn’t get all the glue out of the inside of the ball-and-socket joint before he slotted the arm back into place, but if Magnus keeps moving it until it dries maybe he’ll be able to keep it from sticking.

“Thanks, Taako,” he says.

“Hey.” Taako smiles at him and rests a hand on his unclamped shoulder. “Any time, my dude.”

Magnus is almost grateful that his blank wooden face doesn’t betray any expression, because . . . okay, he _knows_ Taako’s hand is there. He can tell. But he can’t feel it. There’s no warmth or softness or comfort to it. He feels like the Voidfish inside its tank, floating in isolation with the rest of the world drifting around outside him, so close but . . . separate, somehow.

Old Kuzyk back home, a stonemason who’d lost a hand to his trade, used to claim that he could still feel the hand at the end of his arm even though it wasn’t there anymore, like its ghost was still attached to him. Magnus feels something like the opposite of that. He can see his mannequin body, see how it responds when he moves, but it isn’t _his_ body. It isn’t—it isn’t real! It doesn’t feel real.

And it hadn’t mattered at first, because it was just for the fight. The mannequin wasn’t very fast or strong or—well, anything really. But it also didn’t feel pain. He could take blows without flinching, without stopping. And then they’d win, and he’d go back, and . . .

He’d been angry at first, when it was over. He had to be angry, had to fill himself up so that he could feel something, so that he didn’t have to think about everything he wasn’t feeling, so that he didn’t have to think about . . .

“I’m . . . dead,” he says aloud. Taako hears him and spins around, shooting finger guns with both hands.

“You’re _un_ dead, Mango. Pretty massive distinction speaking as the dude who risked his own soul to make sure you ended up as one and not the other.”

“Sorry.” Because of course, he remembers Taako—there’s no other way to describe it—rushing in to grab his hand and pull him back. So many other things had happened afterwards that he hadn’t given himself time to think about it properly. “Sorry, thank you . . .”

If he’d been in his body, he would have hugged Taako and let the wizard make excuses about how he'd only thrown his soul after Magnus because he was bored, or because he wanted a first-hand peek at how spectacular his own runway outfit looked, or some other obvious lie. He would have put his arms around his companions when they stopped to rest and fallen asleep close enough that if any of them woke up with nightmares too fresh in their minds they could have reached out and held hands.

But his body is gone and the wooden form he’s in is too hard and numb for hugging, so he stays where he is and lets the wizard walk away.

Merle and Taako pull provisions out of their packs, and Magnus turns away. He needs to finish cleaning up the Pocket Workshop; Taako didn’t put away any of the tools he’d used.

By the time he comes back they’re done eating and have rolled out their blankets. The Red Robe hovers by one of the hollowed-out stump chairs, as still as a statue. Magnus turns his back to it, but he can still feel it there watching him. He lays out his own bedding at a distance from the others and lies down.

His brain—no, his mind, because his brain doesn’t exist anymore, is somewhere in the ashes of Wonderland, and doesn’t he feel silly now for worrying about the finger and the ten years? His mind is too full. He can feel the memories bubbling up, and he doesn’t want them. He wants to know what’s going on. He wants to know what the Red Robes are planning and what they’ve _been_ planning, he wants to be able to think about his own past without running into that static.

But he’s afraid.

“I have nothing left to lose,” he’d said in the forest, and he’d meant it at the time. But that’s not true. He doesn’t have much, but he still has himself, whatever that means.

Who is Magnus Burnsides?

He’s not sure he knows. He has to know.

Magnus Burnsides protects people. Magnus Burnsides is a pretty great fighter and a pretty bad rogue, but he’s learning. Magnus Burnsides is a master woodworker, even if he’s mostly given up his craft for the whole fighter thing. Magnus Burnsides likes hugs, and mead, and terrible puns, and making sure his friends know how much he cares about them. Magnus Burnsides joined the Bureau of Balance because he wanted to protect the world.

Magnus Burnsides grew up on a world with two suns. Magnus Burnsides hid a creation that terrified him with a kind man and a young girl. Magnus Burnsides wears a red uniform—

No! Or . . . maybe. Or . . .

The memories are real. He’s . . . almost sure. As sure as he can be.

He can hear the others snoring. Taako is particularly loud for someone who keeps insisting that he doesn’t sleep.

Does Magnus sleep? He doesn’t have a body anymore. He can’t even close his eyes. He doesn’t have eyes to close, but he tries imagining them shut anyway. Nothing happens. He keeps staring up at the overcast sky above them, occasionally stretching out his right arm so the glue doesn’t freeze it in place.

Or does it even matter? He has no idea how long the magic keeping him tethered to this body is going to last, or how it works. Maybe there's some way to end up like Noelle . . .then at least he could fight. But probably not. He doesn't have a conduit, just this battered wooden body with his soul somehow grafted into it.

And they aren't telling the Bureau what happened to him, anyway. The Red Robe had talked about disguising him. About not letting anyone touch him. He has to act . . . normal . . . until they find out what's going on. Except it won't be normal. Normally when they return from a mission he gives out hugs and handshakes, fist-bumps Carey and fluffs Angus's hair into his face.

He's curled up instinctively onto his side and hugged his knees to his chest, the way he sleeps when he wants a hug but doesn't have anyone to give him one. Before, it always helped. But now he's just numb wood wrapped around wood and it doesn't feel like anything.

He should have offered his blankets to one of the others. Taako always complains about sleeping outdoors; he could have used them. They’re wasted on Magnus. He can’t feel the difference between his bedroll and the ground underneath.

He rolls the blanket up and rests Steven’s bowl in the middle. The goldfish can’t feel the softness any more than he can, but he always rests the ball on a pillow when they’re back at the Bureau, so it’s at least one thing that’s familiar. Steven swims in implacable circles, and Magnus watches until the gleam of his scales against the darkness reminds some part of his mind of a silver ship and he’s pulled back into the tide of memories.

 


End file.
